Pet Valu winds down US operations

The American pet retailer Pet Valu will close all of its 358 stores and warehouses across the US and wind down operations at its Pennsylvanian headquarters. The company announced on its website that the company's online shop is no longer available.  Jamie Gould, Pet Valu's appointed chief restructuring officer, said in a news release that the company's stores "have been significantly impacted by the Covid-19-related restrictions. After a thorough review of all available alternatives, we made the difficult but necessary decision to commence this orderly wind down." Pet Valu is operating the most of its stores throughout the Northeast and the Midwest of the US. Pet Valu said that its US shutdown plans do not affect its about 600 stores in Canada. The US stores were licensing the Pet Valu brand from the Canadian operation. As the pandemic fueled a pet boom across the US, many experts pointed out that the pet business seems to be resilient against the pandemic. The increasing demand in pets led to higher sales for retailers like Petco, PetSmart and the e-commerce pet retailer Chewy. Obviously the pet boom was not enough to save Pet Valu US, however.